1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a recording/reproducing apparatus and a control method of the apparatus, and more specifically, to a user interface used in an apparatus capable of simultaneously recording and reproducing moving images or still images.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, the capacity of recording media such as disk media has increased rapidly, and there have been apparatuses configured to record and reproduce a video signal as well as audio signal for long hours. At a consumer level, the apparatuses employ an image format of high-efficient encoding process such as MPEG (Moving Picture Experts Group), and techniques for recording more than one hour at a compression data rate of about 4 Mbps to 10 Mbps have been developed.
For example, there is an apparatus which utilizes a magnetic optical disk in a video recorder equipped with a camera device (hereinafter, referred to as video camera). Japanese patent application laid-open No. 7-255028 discusses a video camera apparatus capable of recording a large amount of video data in high density, and making it randomly accessible at a high speed.
On the other hand, Japanese patent application laid-open No. 2002-314916 (corresponding to U.S. Pat. No. 6,919,925) discusses a video camera which exploits a randomly accessible feature in the video camera. In the structure disclosed in Japanese patent application laid-open No. 2002-314916, when an image signal recorded at a certain position on a recording medium is reproduced while an image signal is recorded, the image signal to be recorded and the image signal to be reproduced can be displayed respectively.
However, in conventional video cameras capable of simultaneously recording an image signal on a disk and reproducing an image signal, it is necessary to provide operating sections dedicated for recording and reproducing respectively. Accordingly, a size of the video camera body can become large. Further, when the recording and the reproducing are simultaneously performed in a video camera, power consumption of the video camera increases. However, the user would not consider the increase of power consumption when operating the video camera. Accordingly, if the recording and the reproduction are simultaneously performed, a battery residual capacity can suddenly decrease to zero, and both of the recording and the reproducing would be terminated half-way.